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Qwest bids $55 billion for US West, Frontier

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the my-head's-spinning dept.

wanderingstar writes "Bell South owns 10% of Qwest, the US' 4th-largest long-distance carrier and owner of a very high capacity backbone. Qwest has bid $55 billion to acquire US West (another Baby Bell) and Frontier. US West, in turn, is planning on acquiring 9.5% of Global Crossing (a competitor of Qwest's with their own $40+ billion bid in for US West) - a stake that would be included in a potential Qwest purchase. Anyone else need a roadmap to figure out the telecom business? " My big concern with these is that we are seeming to run into the same sort of incestous relationships that have plagued certain countries industries. Am I unfounded in my concern?

1 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Dood, where have you been. by Gumber · · Score: 4

    If this has you worried, I have to wonder where you have been.

    A fragmented background on many of the players.

    1st. Bell Atlantic and USwest are made of peices carved from old MaBell. Other peices include present day AT&T.
    2nd. MaBell was formed by balling up all sorts of small regional telcos in the earlier part of this century.
    3rd. Qwest was started by a former AT&T guy and a former railroad guy (he knew how to get rights of way for all that fiber!)

    Elsewhere we have MCI/Worldcom which was formed from MCI and worldcom. MCI was at the vanguard of the charge to break up MaBell in the first place. Worldcom was made from MFS, Wiltel and UUnet, among others (I think). As part of the MCI merger, MCIs IP backbone was sold to Cable & Wireless who themselves strung the first transatlantic cable.

    Wiltel's fibernetwork was built by Williams in Williams old Natural gass piplines. Williams sold of the network, signed a noncompete, used that time to build capital and now that the noncompete has lapsed, they are building a new network.

    Back to MFS. After selling out, some MFS founders decided to build Level3 communications which is currently leasing fiber from Frontier/globalcenter while they build their own network.

    Frontier, I believe, is formed from an old baby bell.

    I may have some of this wrong, but not so wrong that it makes the whole post wrong. Point is, telecom is heavily inbred. Brothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, all interbreding.